[As President Carter flew over the devastation caused…]

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As President Carter flew over the devastation caused by the eruption of Mount St Helens on the West Coast of the USA, an equally unexpected explosion of militancy brought 200,000 workers and students onto the streets of Kwangju, South Korea's fourth largest city.

Attempts by military authorities to repress student-led demonstrations led to escalating riots in which vast crowds surrounded army and police outposts, raided armouries, and waged an armed insurrection that took control of the city.

Miners from nearby areas, armed with dynamite and gelignite, joined the struggles.

Workers' and students' militias, armed with captured automatic rifles and riding captured army vehicles, formed roadblocks around the city and organised the distribution of free milk. and groceries, as police, soldiers and paratroopers fled.

16 towns • In parallel struggles, armed battles took place in a total of 16 provincial towns in Korea-a state hitherto regarded as a staunch fortress of US imperialism in S.E. Asia.

The demonstrators initially put forward demands, including the lifting of martial law regulations and the execution of the army hard-man, Major General Chon Too Hwan, whose repres sive moves triggered the initial protests two weeks ago.

But as the struggles subsided outside of Kwangju, and army reinforcements began, massing tanks, artillery, jets and helicopter gunships on the edges of the beleagured city, these initial demands were reduced to a call for no victimisation of the student leaders, and an army admission that its conduct had been brutal.

Material problems

There seems little doubt that army intimidation and brute violence will eventually contain last week's Kwangju revolt.

But-there is equally little likelihood of such repression resolving the profound material problems that have driven Korean workers and students into open struggle against one of the world's most vicious regimes.

Throughout 1980 there has been a wave of strikes and occupations by workers fighting to defend their living standards against galloping 30-40% inflation.

Wage increases forced from the employers have been running at 10% above the government's 15% guidelineswhile the Korean "miracle" economy has plunged into crisis with an expected $4 billion trade deficit this year, growing unemployment and falling exports.

The regime of former President Park-assassinated by

BOYCOTT

his Intelligence chief in November 1979-and his successors have responded to this crisis with a policy of Thatcher-style monetarist restrictions, seeking to drive down wage settlements through an increase in unemployment.

But since Park's demise militant struggles for trade union organisation and the removal of Park's nominees from union leaderships have escalated.

In April, for instance, miners took over the city of Sabruk, attacked a police station and demolished several housesdemanding the removal of a union president who accepted a sell-out pay deal.

Divided

This: wave of militancy, developing in the wake of Park's death, found the military regime divided and confused.

Some army chiefs favoured making limited, concessions on democratic rights to the students and the bourgeois opposition of the New. Democratic Party.

Others, like Chon Too Huan, preferred to defend the status quo, and crush any sign of AN In the event the two policies were combined-with the freeing of selected bourgeois political dissidents and the promise of elections, coupled with heavy press censorship, martial law restrictions and the constant threat of • military slow The pace of this "liberalisation" proved too slow for the NDP. From its stronghold in the student campuses it began to agitate for an immediate end to martial law. Riots broke out in Seoul-to be followed by a renewed crackdown on opposition leaders.

It was the arrest of one of these leaders in particular-Kim Dae Jung, only recently freed after 33 months under arrestthat sparked the Kwangju But needless to say neither Kim Dae Jung-who has pleaded for students (and workers!) to "leave politics to the politicians"-nor his rival NDP leader Kim Young Sam-who publicly endorses the presence of 38,000 US troops in Korea and regards their task as to

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